"Actually they cherry pick the citizens based on the money they have. "

Who's "they"? A person is a citizen who was born or naturalized here. I know several naturalized citizens, none of whom are wealthy. I know not one person in the homeless shelters and missions in which I've worked over the past few decades that have ever had their citizenship revoked. Not one.

"If there was a real democracy, all the immigrants would have the same power as the other citizens no matter how much money they have."

An immigrant who is a naturalized citizen has the same power as any other, with trivial exceptions. Ever heard of Arnold Swartzenagger, recent governor of California? Immigrant.

"As it stands, many immigrants are illegal. They still live under your law..."

They live in violation of our law. By definition - that's why they are "illegal". The solution is to obtain a green card and become a legal immigrant by "living under our law".

Seriously, which country in the world do you propose would allow me to fly in for an afternoon and vote in their elections. Why would they want to permit that?

I didn't single out the USA. Most of western Europe is just like that.

They live in violation of our law. By definition - that's why they are "illegal". The solution is to obtain a green card and become a legal immigrant by "living under our law".

Seriously, which country in the world do you propose would allow me to fly in for an afternoon and vote in their elections. Why would they want to permit that?

Again, democracy is not about voting. The green card should be given to whoever requests it and people should be given all the rights to education, information and access to resources that democracy entails. If you vote to deny access to democracy for a part of the people then you vote against democracy.
If you want to select and cherry pick your immigrants and call those you didn't pick illegals, then you don't have democracy. The illegals are still people and under a democracy they don't exist since the people has the power.

Look, we tried that through the early 20th century, and eventually the problems it caused became so dire that we switched to the current system - which, while far from flawless, did in fact resolve the most serious of those problems.

Since you proclaim yourself an expert on "democracy" (ignoring for the moment that we are a republic rather than a democracy) and on the USA (even though you've never set foot in this country), what alternate solutions to those problems would you offer?

The green card should be given to whoever requests it and people should be given all the rights to education, information and access to resources that democracy entails. If you vote to deny access to democracy for a part of the people then you vote against democracy.
If you want to select and cherry pick your immigrants and call those you didn't pick illegals, then you don't have democracy. The illegals are still people and under a democracy they don't exist since the people has the power.

So basically you're saying that all immigration laws are inherently undemocratic and that everyone in the world should be counted as an American citizen?

Sorry, but we're going to have to agree to disagree on that point.

If we ever get a single world-government that argument would make sense. While we still have different nation states, it's nonsense.

"They live in violation of our law. By definition - that's why they are 'illegal'. The solution is to obtain a green card and become a legal immigrant by 'living under our law'."

Green card holders do not vote in the USA, despite being legal residents. They abide by the laws, pay the same taxes, but no voting rights. Is this different in other countries?

But anyway my take is that voting is one ingredient for a genuine democracy. But by itself voting is insufficient - the government needs to be transparent to the people, there cannot be secrets from the people. Democratic governments must make laws for the people, not in spite of them or to control them. Whistle-blowing sources like wikileaks are in fact integral to democracy.

I make the claim that, in democracy, there is no distinction between "government" and "the people", they're one and the same. Of course you've mentioned that the US is a republic, and that's true. Effectively it doesn't matter how the people feel about anything if there's an elite political class who entitle themselves to write laws in their own image.

Take for example billionaire mayor bloomburg in NY, who changed the laws on term restrictions in order to continue "serving" as mayor past legal limits. Noone can compete politically against his wealth and power. His single voice overrides millions of critics - that's not democracy.

I initially missed the change in topic - spiderman and I were discussing illegal immigrants and you shifted to legal immigrants, hence the edit.

I'm not familiar with laws concerning legal immigrants in most countries, so I can't answer your specific question with any confidence. I don't think that requiring a person to become a citizen prior to granting voting rights makes the USA less democratic to any significant degree, since an important part of the naturalization process is learning civics and American history - though I'll reserve the right to change my mind after thinking about it more deeply.

I realize the immigration issue is more complex than we can hope to cover here - but I'm sick to death of apologists creating new names for those who violate our immigration laws. Yesterday I heard a newscaster refer to "self-sponsored immigrants". Huh?!? If I'm traveling 120 mph on I-5, am I complying with a "self-sponsored speed limit"?

Before we can resolve the problem, we'll have to stop pretending that it's not really a problem.